Nov. 13, 2013

Written by

Detroit Free Press Education Writer

Beckie Francis offered to resign her position as the head women’s basketball coach at Oakland University in June, but school officials fired her instead, her attorney said in court today.

From that day on, OU has tried to smear Francis and withhold documents from her, Francis’ attorney Deborah Gordon said.

“They want to control the narrative,” she said. “They want to keep Beckie Francis in a box. They want me and the media to get whatever makes Beckie Francis (look) wrong. This is absurd and nonsense.”

Gordon was in court today seeking an unredacted version of an internal report that OU used to justify firing Francis on June 12. Francis got a heavily redacted version of the report, but Gordon argued it didn’t give her enough information to know exactly why she was fired. She said Francis needs the report to decide whether to file a wrongful termination lawsuit.

Oakland County Circuit Judge Martha Anderson ordered OU to provide her with an unredacted copy of the report and said she’ll decide by the end of the week whether more of it needs to be released to Gordon and Francis.

Much of the approximately one-hour court hearing was spent wrangling over what OU had to release.

The university said it has given out all it can and is bound by a number of laws, including those on student privacy, from delivering more of the report. University lawyers said the report also deals with employees other than Francis.

“Oakland University has been trying to navigate through” a tough situation, OU attorney Robert Boonin said. He also said Francis participated in two meetings about the findings of the report and knows why she was fired.

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“There’s no law that says there has to be a document” with the reasons an employee was fired, Boonin said. “We are giving the employee enough of the file so she can see what’s in the file, but there are other things in” there that are protected from disclosure.

In a court filing late last week, the university said Francis was mentally and emotionally abusing her players, was “obsessed” with the players’ eating habits and body fat and refused to follow orders to separate her religion from her coaching.

Her firing was announced two hours after her husband, then-university President Gary Russi, abrupty retired.

At the time of her firing, the university did not publicly say why she was being let go. A Free Press investigation published in July that included interviews with 15 former players and others associated with the program uncovered allegations matching those put forth by OU in last week’s court filing.

Gordon said that without the full document, Francis can’t defend herself to a potential new employer or to the news media. In court, Gordon pointed to a section of the report saying Francis was obsessed with body fat, but all the details in the section were blacked out.

“What does that mean?” Gordon said. “Did she not put out a bowl of candy or was she doing (something harmful to the players)?